Laurentius Surius (1522-78) was a Carthusian monk who wrote ecclesiastical history. Among his works are a Commentarius brevis rerum in orbe gestarum ab anno 1550 (1568), and a Vitae Sanctorum, 1570 et seq. He was accused of inaccuracy by Protestant writers. It is worth while noting that Q and O'F read 'Sleydan', i.e. Sleidanus. John Sleidan (1506-56) was a Protestant historian who, like Surius, wrote both general and ecclesiastical history, e.g. De quatuor Summis Imperiis, Babylonico, Persico, Graeco, et Romano, 1556 (an English translation appeared in 1635), and De Statu Religionis et Reipublicae, Carolo Quinto Caesare Commentarii (1555-9). The latter is a history of the Reformation written from the Protestant point of view, to which Surius' work is a reply. Sleidan's history did not give entire satisfaction to the reformers. It is quite possible that Donne's first sneer was at the Protestant historian and that he thought it safer later to substitute the Catholic Surius.
l. 54. Calepines Dictionarie. A well-known polyglot dictionary edited by Ambrose Calepine (1455-1511) in 1502. It grew later to a Dictionarium Octolingue, and ultimately to a Dictionarium XI Linguarum (Basel, 1590).
l. 56. Some other Jesuites. The 'other' is found only in HN, which is no very reliable authority. Without it the line wants a whole foot, not merely a syllable. Donne more than once drops a syllable, compensating for it by the length and stress which is given to another. Nothing can make up for the want of a whole foot, though in dramatic verse an incomplete line may be effective. To me, too, it seems very like Donne to introduce this condensed and sudden stroke at Beza and nothing more likely to have been dropped later, either by way of precaution or because it was not understood. No one of the reformers was more disliked by Catholics than Beza. The licence of his early life, his loose Latin verses, the scurrilous wit of his own controversial method—all exposed him to and provoked attack. The De Vita et Moribus Theodori Bezae, Omnium Haereticorum nostri temporis facile principis, &c.: Authore Jacobo Laingaeo Doctore Sorbonico (1585), is a bitter and calumnious attack. There was, too, something of the Jesuit, both in the character of the arguments used and in the claim made on behalf of the Church to direct the civil arm, in Beza's defence of the execution of Servetus. Moreover, the Vindiciae contra Tyrannos was sometimes attributed to Beza, and the views of the reformers regarding the rights of kings put forward there, and those held by the Jesuits, approximate closely. (See Cambridge Modern History, iii. 22, Political Thought in the Sixteenth Century, pp. 759-66.) In his subsequent attacks upon the Jesuits, Donne always singles out the danger of their doctrines and practice to the authority of kings. Throughout the Satyres Donne's veiled Catholic prejudices have to be constantly borne in mind.
Page 161, l. 59. and so Panurge was. See Rabelais, Pantagruel ii. 9. One day that Pantagruel was walking with his friends he met 'un homme beau de stature et elegant en tous lineaments de corps, mais pitoyablement navré en divers lieux, et tant mal en ordre qu'il sembloit estre eschappe es chiens'. Pantagruel, convinced from his appearance that 'il n'est pauvre que par fortune', demands of him his name and story. He replies; but, to the dismay of Pantagruel and his friends, his answer is couched first in German, then in Arabic (?), then in Italian, in English (or what passes as such), in Basque, in Lanternoy (an Esperanto of Rabelais's invention), in Dutch, in Spanish, in Danish, in Hebrew, in Greek, in the language of Utopia, and finally in Latin. '"Dea, mon amy," dist Pantagruel, "ne sçavez-vous parler françoys?" "Si faict tresbien, Seigneur," respondit le compaignon; "Dieu mercy! c'est ma langue naturelle et maternelle, car je suis né et ay esté nourry jeune au jardin de France: c'est Touraine."—"Doncques," dist Pantagruel, "racomtez nous quel est votre nom et dont vous venez."... "Seigneur," dist le compagnon, "mon vray et propre nom de baptesmes est Panurge."' Panurge was not much behind Calepine's Dictionary, and if Donne's companion spoke in the 'accent and best phrase' of all these tongues he certainly spoke 'no language'.
l. 69. doth not last: 'last' has the support of several good MSS., 'taste' (i.e. savour, go down, be acceptable) of some. It is impossible to decide on intrinsic grounds between them.
l. 70. Aretines pictures. The lascivious pictures of Giulio Romano, for which Aretino wrote sonnets.
l. 75. the man that keepes the Abbey tombes. See Davies' epigram, On Dacus, quoted in the general note on the Satyres.
l. 80. Kingstreet. From Charing Cross to the King's Palace at Westminster. It was for long the only way to Westminster from the north. 'The last part of it has now been covered by the new Government offices in Parliament Street'. Stow's Survey of London, ed. Charles Lethbridge Kingsford (1908), ii. 102 and notes.
ll. 83-7. I divide the dialogue thus:
Companion. Are not your Frenchmen neat?
Donne. Mine? As you see I have but one Frenchman, look he follows me.
Companion (ignoring this impertinence). Certes they (i.e. Frenchmen) are neatly cloth'd. I of this mind am, Your only wearing is your grogaram.
Donne. Not so Sir, I have more.